The Son of Believers

THE SON OF BELIEVERS. BY ANNIE PIKE GREENWOOD. His mother was a Latter-day Saint, the wife of a bishop, and confirmed in the belief that her position was more to be desired than that of the first queen in Europe. Was she not in possession of the gospel as revealed by the Prophet Joseph? And had she not married a man who stood high in the Church, a just and an honest man who followed all the law as made known by the Prophet Joseph and Brigham Young? She was a little woman. A loving firm mouth and clear gray eyes were set in a face fretted over with little lines. The bishop had been dead for some years; a little adobe house, shaded by tamarack and fig trees, had been her portion; for the rest her own hands must not only make the bread, but gain the means to buy the flour; hence the little, fretted lines. She was the best carpet weaver in the town. Her few hens always laid fine, large eggs, and her cow supplied butter for the table and for sale. At the front and side of the house she had a good sized vegetable garden, bordered all round with batchelor- buttons, roses, sweet-williams, candy-tuft, mignonette, mary- golds and all the dear old-fashioned flowers that remind one of home more than any others. Two lilac bushes by the gate were loaded with purple blossoms, breathing perfume every spring. A trellis of grapes was also in this yard, as in almost every other yard in the little town. If child, woman or man were sick, she was always sent for. She knew what certain herbs could do, kept always a supply on hand, drawn from a small plot in he»* own garden. These were used only in the simpler cases. For any complexity which might

THbi SON OF BELIEVERS. 609 promise death, there was always "the laying on of hands'' by the elders. She had come to this town as a young woman; she was now growing old. It was the old story of a little English home left behind, even mother, father, sisters and brothers, at the call of the gospel. Across the plains she had walked, doing her work with the otLers. In Salt Lake City the first winter she had mar- ried. With many others, she was "called" to colonize this little town in southern Utah, far away from the railroad. Like Sarah of old, for years she was childless. Then came this son of hers. God had remembered her prayers. Life was sweet indeed to her, then. And as Sarah had done, she offered this son up to the Lord. He should serve the Lord all his life, in every capacity to which he might be called. As she sewed and rocked the cradle with her foot on the rocker, she saw in vision her son grown up; saw him take each step of the priesthood. It was not ambition which prompted these dreams. With an intensity which has moved the world's saints and martyrs, she desired that he should serve the Lord. He was sent regularly to the Primary and Sunday school, and learned to take hid part with the rest. The bishop was alive then. It had been a proud time for the mother whenever the lit- tle son "took part." The first time his stubby little legs had teen put into trous- ers he had lisped a song in the meetinghouse at a Primary meet- ing, in which the surrounding towns had pined. He had followed, on the program, a little scared girl, who had come near ending her "piece" in tears. Her white-stockinged legs fairly flew to her mother as the organ began to play the prelude to his song. He was frightened, too; even the sense that he was garbed as became a man could not keep him from giving agonized twists to both sides of his little pocket, with nervous, fat fingers, at sight of the millions (to him) of upturned faces. verse. He proceeded rather quaveringly through th -i first Suddenly, the faces of his mother and father seemed to emerge from the mass before him. He remembered that his father had promised to take him to the next town when he was

610 IMPROVEMENT ERA. to speak on the following Sunday on "The Law of Tithing," if only the song were sung well; more potent still, he remembered that his mother had said she "would be so proud!" — whatever that might be. The fat legs in stockings with broad stripes running about them, as was the fashion, grew less tremulous and more firm. The lad's voice suddenly swelled out so strongly that it was difficult for the assembled parents to suppress a smile at the lit- tle fellow's sudden change. He sang, I'm a Mormon, I'm a Mormon, I'm a little Mormon boy. When he was dene, with flushed face and swiftly clattering feet he sought his mother. She kissed him with deep, thankful happiness, and lifted him into the seat between herself and the father, where he sat in open-mouthed wonder watching the other children perform, the fat, striped legs sticking out straight before him. Many, many times after that his voice had been raised in the house of the Lord. — His was a very good gift a pure, rich voice, and the ability to bring forth music from any instrument his fingers might touch. There was a little, old organ in the adobe house, one of the first musical instruments of the kind to reach Utah. Often the mother used to sit with her only son in the old-fachioned parlor, with its pictures of the Prophet Joseph standing on a scaffolding, addressing the people below, occupying the most important position in the room, opposite the small- paned front windows. There was a framed head of the beloved leader, Brigham, and side by side, in deep oval frames, were the quaint portraits of his mother's parents — the only reminder she had of those days before the gospel came. There was a picture of his father, grave and impressive as modern photography somehow fails to be. It was framed around with flowers done in worsted by his mother's hand, all under a glass and edged with dark wood. Beneath it hung a framed copy of "Resolutions of Sympathy" to the widow. A tall glass case on the centre-table contained a climbing cluster of wax flowers, the Bible near it beside the Book of Mormon. A what-not in the corner was the bearer of souvenirs of the father's travels during missionary work.

THE SON OF BELIEVERS. 611 On the floor was a rag-carpet, woven by the mother. The organ was set against the wall near the picture of the Prophet. Here it was that every evening for a space after the simple supper the mother used to sit with her son. And while he played on the organ and sang "We thank thee,0 God, for a prophet, " and "0 my Father," the mother, listening and watching, with the love of God and her son shining in her eyes, thought that the fair young David of old must have looked even as her dear son, as he sang before Saul his deathless songs. This time was past all too soon. There came a day when the boy had learned enough and earned enough, when the mother had planned enough and saved enough; when Ambition had found wings and was ready to fly. One of the boy's dearest friends had been a fine old doctor. — Consequently the boy's ambition had taken that shape he would be a physician. To this end he had studied and worked. He had worked at whatever he could find, and his mother had laid the money by for his cherished purpose with prayers. He had stud- ied with the old doctor every moment possible, gaining much that was to help him later. The mother never questioned the result. "All things right are the Lord's will," she often thought, "who can tell for what purpose he may want my boy?" The parting was a hard one for the widow. He was all she had. He could not know all that his absence must mean to her. She must bear up bravely under his temporary loss, and not cling and hang about his neck as a mill-stone. "All things right are the Lord's will." The boy climbed into the stage that was to take him to the train. His little trunk was behind in the wagon bed beside a canvas telescope which held his clean shirt, handkerchiefs and lunch, and a little new Bible, though he did not know this. It 'vas to be a surprise from his mother. A number of young people had gathered in the road about the before, had stage to say goodbye. These same, only a few nights their energy and talents in his behalf at a "benefit." The spent wishes sum which they had thus been able to give him with their for his success, seemed very large to the boy.

612 IMPROVEMENT ERA. His heart swelled and sang with happiness as he said good- bye. Ambition about to be realized cannot take heed where love is weeping, if only Iovh be not too insistent. It is selfish to force the sorrow of loneliness, parting with its all, upon youth. Thus thought the mother. She smiled and kept the tears back as best she could. The boy leaned over the wheel to kiss her goodbye once again. Then in a cloud of dust from the hot August street, they were gone. Long afterward the mother stood looking down that road, all the young companions gone. She was saying over and over in her heart, "So young! So pure! So handsome! My only, only one!" The boy was delighted with the college town. It seemed large to him after the tiny village in which he had spent his life. The town existed only for the college, yet was always bickering with the college like a mother scolding a loved son for his muddy boot-marks. It is ever thus with college towns. The beauty of the place was a source of great pleasure to — the boy cottages close together with porches and all with lawns, unfenced, the pavement running past, as though through the yard, grass on both sides — even in the centers of the streets. Great oak and maple trees everywhere, with squirrels chat- tering and scuttling about unafraid. Flower beds, winding, paved paths, long vistas through over- hanging branches — this was the campus. The boy found beauty, beauty, everywhere. Hundreds of whistling boys and men passed through the streets. How happy and hopeful they all seemed! The boy's heart responded to them eagerly, and never having known an enemy, to dye his nature with a tinge of suspicion, he soon had many friends. The happiness and youth, untried, of his own heart naturally made the gayest of these friends most attractive to him. Little by little their habits became his. He joined a fraternity, was initiated, which happens to mean that at midnight he was dragged from his bed and made to pull a wagon around the Boulevard, blind-fold, two masked fellows spurring him on with sharp sticks. He did not mind. To him it was all a part of the exciting new life into which he had plunged. His ready, dauntless spirit won

THE SON OF BELIEVERS. 613 to him such friends — as were not friends, in the true sense of that sacred word, when sacredly applied. When the money first began to vanish — takes money to be it of the fraternity — the boy had a twinge of doubt. He wrote to his mother, carefully, but none the less plainly, that his money as planned, v/as not enough for the time. Asking no explanation, more money came at once. (He, did not know what labor and de- privation the extra demand cost her ) With the money came a letter which a mother would well have understood. Not so a son. Between the lines there breathed a spirit of fear and solicitude. The boy might have known that the world is a very small place for gossip or evil report. "Dear son," she wrote (and the writing lacked the assurance of youth, and the spelling was not always perfect) "are you sure that your present companions are the ones you should have? Do you think your friendships are such as might be blessed by the Lord? "I hear that one of the Brothers is there," she went on, "he is older than you, and was a missionary some time ago to New Zealand. Sister B. tells me that he is taking a law course. Please go and see him. Maybe you could get to room with him. I would feel so safe if you could. "You l^ave not mentioned whether there are any services held among those of our Church. Are there no "Mormons" there except you? What do you do on Sundays? I do not like to think of my boy off among strangers without the influence of the gos- pel in his daily life." The rest was talk about home life— the vegetable garden, the late blooming flowers, the hens, the cow, the neighbors and friends —all the dear details, unimportant to those who know not their dearness in absence. The boy read impatiently over the advice concerning his friends. Much as he loved his mother, he could not but feel that hers was the narrow judgment of the contracted life, made neces- sary by the country village in which she had spent so many of her years. He felt that his experience was wider than hers, and therefore better. Youth never yet recognized the fact that judg- ment comes not so much from extensive experience as from exten-

614 IMPROVEMENT ERA. sive thought. Only as life ripens is a man fully capable of such thought. As a concession to love, the boy went to call on the Brothei mentioned in his mother's letter. He did not enjoy the visit. The Brother talked principally of the glory of the gospel, and the wish that a meeting might be arranged for the few Latter-day Saints students each Sunday. Restlessness was upon the boy. The natural routine of the Sunday in his home town seemed to him en- tirely out of place in the gay life of a student. He was used to gathering in the room of a fellow student, to pass the time pleas- antly with others, or to walk around the boulevard, Sundays. He always wrote to his mother that day. He was never guilty of neg- lecting that. When the boy arose to leave, the Brother offered to accom- pany him part way. As they walked, they met some of the boy's fraternity chums. They cast curious glances at the two. At dinner he was the butt of many jokes, and Was asked many questions. He discovered that the Brother was well known as a devout Latter-day Saint, and that to them it was something of a — ]oke an abnormality of mind approaching actual shame to believe in such a religion. They knew the boy was from Utah. Strange to say they had never questioned his religion, but had accepted his merry nature, his fine voice and gift for music, as sufficient proof that no re- ligious inclination lay beneath. He had never spoken of it, since it had never been brought into question, and his was a nature too confiding and loving to seek argument or difference for its own sake. He had not enjoyed being with the Brother. It was not so much a matter of religion as of temperament. Too often, unfor- tunately, youth gains the impression from the unrelieved seriousness of some believers that religion is not a joyous thing — the happiest in all the world, being the law of happiness for this life and all others. He resented the light talk of his mother's religion, and yet a feeling of revulsion for the Brother, old customs and old things concerning his former religious life, overcame him. He kept silence with burning face, fixing his eyes on his plate, and prefer-

THE SON OF BELIEVERS. 015 ring to leave an assumed smile of amusement upon his lips. But he was not smiling inwardly. A doubt, big, black, ugly, was creeping into his heart. They were wrong to bandy back and forth a topic of such sacredness — — and yet was it sacred, after all? How did his mother know she was right? Unconsciously he compared the Brother with these young compani'^ns in the bloom and brightness of first, brilliant youth. They did not believe, yet their happiness lacked nothing. Like the rest of the world, since time began, he was measuring an abstract creed by concrete and very fallible humanity. He felt that it was due his mother, if nothing else, that he should speak and own his relationship to the despised religion. He imagined their horror when he should announce, "I am a son of believers. My father was a bishop. My mother was his third wife." No. He could not do that. He would be with them but a few months. He could even quit the fraternity. The sin of omission is greater than the sin of commission. It isa failure of will which makes us do a forbidden thilig, but it takes a positive will to refrain from doing the right thing. Man naturally does right. Refusing to do right is a greater error than slipping from right into wrong. No doubt, however black, could excuse the boy to himself for having omitted so vital an explanation as that he was a "son of be- lievers." He thought it could. He said to himself that he would have spoken if it could have done any good. He tried to evade the point that in allowing these companions to think him other than he was, he had arrayed himself against his own parents. Time went on. The boy never saw the Brother again except he happened to be seeking a comrade. This in class-rooms when was not more than twice. He was spending more money than in way of planned, but his mother never seemed to notice this complaint. That he was slowly but constantly changing in his at- titude toward former things he did not realize. Hs knew that his mother's account of religious meetings had grown tedious to him. One eveninghe was forced to face the change in himself. A fellow student— his best-loved chum— had come to his room. He a handsome lad from Indiana, with a good voice. He was a was aw student. Music had drawn them together.

616 IMPROVEMENT ERA. He announced himself by strumming on his guitar which he had brought with him. He was singing a snatch from "The For- tune Teller," while his eyes wandered idly about the room. Sud- denly he stopped. "By the gods!" he said, springing up, "who would have sus- pected you?" His hand reached out to grasp a small black book which had been laid, obscurely, on a pile of books in the book-case. He was about to lift it when the boy sprang forward. Intervening, he took the book quickly from its place and dropped it into his bureau drawer, turned the key, removed the latt'^r, and placed it in his pocket. His face had flushed crimson. The other boy stared in amazement. "Well!" he ejaculated, "you must have secrets! Who would ever have taken you for a psalm reader. Even if you did promise mother to read a chapter each day, I wouldn't blush about it.'' The comment was good natured, but the subject of it glanced angrily at the speaker, and pretended to gather up some books for study. "I wouldn't be ashamed, if I were you!" The guitar was made to give forth a hymn in most melancholy measures. The lad from Indiana was laughing to himself. The bo7 from Utah bent over his books with yet darker countenance. Finding that the silence was not to be broken amiably, the visitor rose and left, strumming suggestively, and singing: Are yoa washed? Are you washed? The boy from Utah knew he was imitating the Salvation Army. What if he had known that his friend from Utah was a Latter-day Saint? Would he have as derisively sung: my Father, thou that dwellest? The boy was ashamed. Yes, he was ashamed. And of what? Of these words which had so nearly fallen under the eyes of his friend: To my dear son, hoping this little Bible may help him to be a better T^atter- day Saint each year. From his loving Mother.

THE SON OF BELIEVERS. 617 You may wonder that the boy had changed so quickly. It would have been more wonderful had he escaped change. He had taken his religion "for granted." He was "a son of believers," therefore, he believed. When he was removed from the influences which had shaped his life, it was to meet those most attractive to a happy, unsuspicious nature. They all bent most plausibly away from the things he had known. It was a new experience, and new experience always makes us feel that it is superior to the old, be- ing the latest. If the boy could have known what was the life of his mother without him, all might have been different. Could he have seen across the distance, a happier heart might have been made to beat in that old, loving breast. Almost from the first, the mother had been acquainted with the fact that her son was in other surroundings than she desired. There was one writer of letters from the college to the little town who never failed to give appalling accounts of the boy's manner of living at the college. Some of it was true— a great deal, in fact, but some of it also was dictated by a jealous and less gifted comrade of the bey's early school days. There is always a ready tongue or pen awaiting the dictates of idle gossip or malice. heart it can And always the person's arrow somewhere finds the most wound. The mother worked harder than ever. More money meant upon And, oh, she prayed unceasingly for her more demand her. son, her only one! Then she wrote to him, "My son, I fear you are forgetting all you owe to the gospel. Remember how blessed you are in hav- ing been born the son of believers!" He answered her, "Did it ever occur to you. mother, that you followed a phantom? That might be wrong? That you and father impostors? That you poor, deluded people were your leaders were There more, more, mother, touching on used to make profit?— is topics I cannot mention to you, being my mother— my birth, for instance." show. The old mother That was not all, but that is enough to with glowing joy. It dropped from her had received the letter She fell forward in a heap on fingers, and her face was ashen.

618 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the little parlor floor. For hours she neither moved nor seemed to breathe. The gray hair touched the light dust on the carpet and the face lay with eyes closed against it. On the wall the Prophet still spoke to the people, his hand- some head lifted with calm assurance. The leader Brigham looked out with a benign expression. The mother and father were calm and unmoved in their frames. The bishop was as emotionless in his oval of worsted flowers, reminding one in (,he expression of his eyes of the boy. Wax flowers, Book of Mormon, Bible, small paned windows, what-not full of relics, closed organ— all were as of old. Yeb the old figure on the floor was never to be the same again. As though a knife was drawn from the heart, a gasp came from the purpled lips, the eye-lids slowly lifted. She sat up painfully, bewildered. Then her eyes fell on the letter. Her lips trembled, her breast began to heave, sob upon sob shook her. She rose to her knees, lifting her arms, and in tne words of him who was crucified by those he loved even as she loved her only son, she cried, "My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me?" By many small signs the seriousness of the change in the boy might have been read. A story of his conflicting thoughts might be written concerning each step he took away from the teachings of his childhood — his first smoke, taste of coffee and of beer; all three forbidden to a good Latter-day Saint. In none of them did he become intemperate, but he had broken the law none the less. It was spring when a certain notorious temperance reformer came to the college town. Her name is such that mention of it always brings a smile, for her zeal is greater than her wisdom. She took to lecturing from a carriage at the corner of the college campus. One day the boy from Utah came upon a crowd of students gathered about the gray- haired agitator, who was wav- ing her arms and declaiming excitedly. He stopped to hear what she had to say: "If you go into saloons, what will your sweethearts think of you?" "I ain't got no sweetheart," whined a wag in the crowd, un- grammatically.

THE SON OF BELIEVERS. 619 "Then I'll be your sweetheart!" announced the gray-haired reformer. A shout of derision and amusement greeted her words. "Has anyone here today got a bottle of whisky?" she asked, "I hope not! — — — How's that? You have, have you? Well, give it to me! give it to me, young man! — Aren't you ashamed?— Give it here." A young fellow advanced, grinning, and passed a flask up to the reformer. She did with it what those who had planned hoped and expected she would. "This is what I do with all this devilish liquor!" she cried, rais- ing the bottle on high. 8he brought it down with a crash on the side of the carriage. Splinters of glass and the liquid flew in all directions. But that was not what had made the crowd shrink back with one accord, and the reformer catch her nose between her fingers. The boys had played a joke on her. The flask had been filled with the most disgusting smelling chemicals that could be mixed. After this prank the students began to yell and laugh again, climbing into the carriage, taking her hatchets which she had brought to sell. The boy from Utah felt that their conduct had gone past a joke. This was an old woman, no matter how foolish her method of reformation might be, and these thoughtless students were in- sulting her. His blood boiled! What should he do? In this moment of indecision the reformer signalled to her driver, and set the horses into a quick pace, which soon took them away. The boy from Utah felt angry with himself and the stu- dents. He had looked on without moving while an old woman was subjected to ciude, coarse insult! Why had he done or said nothing? The real reason, had he known it, was the slow but sure weakening of his will in these months. Had he decided that his mother and father were wrong, and had then accepted habit condemned by them, it would have been different. But he had decided Where they were believers, he was a doubter, that was nothing. doubt he had done those things which his all. And in a state of Indecision had overtaken conscience yet reminded him were wrong. him in all things.

620 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Out of humor with himself, he sat in his room that evening, trying to write to his mother. He was not as regular in that as he had been. Tonight there was to be a banquet among the ' 'fellows" in honor of the temperance reformer, at which not she, but much beer and other liquor, was to be present. It was the college students' idea of a joke, and would be repeated by any set of college students in any college town, were the reformer to go there. "Which shows the universality of the college students* idea of a joke. The boy from Utah had determined not to go. Tonight he felt most uneasy. The insult to the old woman had awakened the best in him, and he was thinking of his mother. He wanted to see her tonight very much. A knock came to the door; the lad from Indiana came in, begging him to go to the banquet. "They sent me after you," he pleaded. "Just one song then — you can leave. They are all so anxious. We can't do without you, that's all. I've sung all I know, and they want you." Soon two others had dropped in to join their entreaties that the boy from Utah sing at the banquet. He might have resisted them three or four months before: he could not now. Upon a chair he stood before the banquet table. The feast was in progress, but that did not stop the songs and speeches. His eyes were sparkling not alone from youth or excitement. He held a half-emptied glass aloft, and was singing the drinking song from ''The School for Scandal," the young fellows all around the board joining in the chorus with clinking glasses: Let the glass pass, Drink to the lass, I warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass! Let the glass pass, Drink to the lass, I warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass! While he was yet singing, a young, fair-haired fellow next to him rose to his feet and started to make some maudlin remarks. "Sit down! Sit down!" one or two cried. He heeded them not. The man next to him jerked his coat to compel him. He lurched over heavily against the lad from

: THE SON OF BELIEVERS. 621 Utah. The latter tried to save himself, but went down with a crash. It was not much of a fall. It was even strange that it should have rendered him senseless. He had struck his face on a chair edge or the table. A gash ran down the forehead, cutting into the eyelid. Perhaps the smashed glass that went down with him had caused the hurt. After the' first scare, in care of a doctor he was taken away, and the banquet continued. Nobody, not excepting the boy from Utah, thought it was anything serious. Next day the injured boy asked the doctor a queer question ''Doctor, why can't I see when you take the bandage aw^y?" "Your eye is only partly open." "I should be able to see a little." "Yes, I should think so." "Well, I can't." An examination followed. Even the doctor had not suspected a result so hopeless. The sight of the injured eye was gone- gone forever. And if the other eye, already beginning to be af- fected sympathetically, were to be saved, all study must be re- linquished. The boy heard the verdict, paling slowly to deathly white, **My mother! my poor, poor mother!" came quiveringly from his lips. A few weeks after he was on his way home. No permanent disfigurement had resulted from his accident. There was a scar, which would some day be hardly noticeable. There was a dark bluish mark across the brown of one eye; that was all. But the boy's ambition was ended. When the stage drove into the little town, an old woman stood tremulous with anxious waiting, under the tammaracks, by a little adobe house. The lilacs were in bloom, and the sweet, old- fashioned flowers of spring. There was a sob in the greeting they gave each other— the She drew him quickly into the little parlor, son and the mother. in sight of the Prophet Joseph, the leader Brigham, the bishop, and all the other familiar things of the dear old-fashioned room. "0 mother! mother! I have done wrong so often! I shall

—— tJ22 IMPROVEMENT ERA. try to be a good son to you, but I shall never be now what I might have been." "You will be more to me now, my son — my dear boy — you will be more dear to me now than you would have been!" Garden City, Kansas.